The hit Netflix sports documentary series that took us into the depths of the National Football League in 2023, Quarterback, is now back for a season 2, with more intense moments from the 2024 NFL season. Produced by the quarterback-turned-producer Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, the series gives us a glimpse into the professional and personal lives of quarterbacks, who are often considered to have one of the toughest player positions in any sport. While Quarterback season 2 still disappointingly fails to take us inside a Super Bowl event, which is honestly not up to the creators of the docuseries, it still makes for an entertaining watch, especially for fans of football.
Spoiler Alert
Who are the athletes featured in season 2?
Quarterback season 2 focuses on three QBs in the NFL at three very different stages of their respective careers, but with obviously the same goal—to get their hands on the Vince Lombardi trophy at the end of the 2024 season. Joe Burrow, the youngest of the three athletes, has a serious challenge ahead in his career: to win the Super Bowl, especially since he has shown great potential in the early stages of his time in the NFL. Born and raised in Ames, Iowa, Joe always knew that he was to become a sportstar, as he hails from a family with a rich and old sporting heritage. During his high school days at Athens High School in Ohio, he had to make a choice between basketball and football, since he was equally involved in both sports at the time, and he chose the latter, simply because he believed he could do better in it. After a promising football career at Athens High, he joined Ohio State University in the hopes of making a mark on the world of college football.
However, Joe Burrow did not get the time or the chance that he had hoped for at Ohio State, and after two unsuccessful years, he transferred to Louisiana State University to play for the LSU Tigers. It was here that the young athlete finally shined and showed his true potential as a quarterback, winning the Heisman Trophy in 2019, which is awarded to the best college football player in the United States. Joe followed up on this personal success with a team victory, as he led LSU to the NCAA championships and helped the team win by a resounding margin. Being a highly rated young athlete, he was selected as the 1st overall pick in the 2020 NFL drafts by the Cincinnati Bengals, and the selection brought him personal joy. As he states in Quarterback season 2, he now wanted to win something for his home state of Ohio, something that he could not manage to do with Ohio State.
After a forgettable first season with the Bengals, Joe Burrow eventually started playing up to his potential, throwing more than 4000 yards in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and leading the team to the playoffs in both seasons. The Bengals, led by Burrow on offense, even reached Super Bowl LVI in 2021, but they narrowly lost to the Los Angeles Rams in a closely contested game. This has unfortunately remained as the highest point of Burrow’s career to this date, as he continues to repeat the brilliance from 2021 and win the Super Bowl this time. Therefore, Joe Burrow begins the 2024 season with hopes to shine and with a point to prove—that he is a generationally talented QB with superstar caliber.
The situation is starkly different for the oldest footballer in the cast of Quarterback season 2, Kirk Cousins, the 36-year-old veteran QB who featured in the previous season as well. While Kirk was at a relatively more comfortable and dominating position the last time out, as the leader of the Minnesota Vikings offense, things have taken a massive turn in his career. After decent showings in his high school and college careers, Kirk had been selected by the Washington franchise in the 4th round of the 2012 NFL Draft. Following three seasons in which he passed for more than 4000 yards, Kirk Cousins was traded to the Minnesota Vikings, and this is where he found home for the next 6 years, often showing why he was considered as one of the most reliable QBs in the game.
But Kirk Cousins’s time with the Vikings had also been interrupted with injuries a number of times, because of which he started receiving stem cell therapy, and his segment in the Netflix docuseries begins with him receiving the therapy somewhere in the Caribbean. At the end of the 2023 season, Kirk had a tough choice to make, as the Vikings were not giving him a long-term contract, as they wanted to evaluate his performance for a year and then make any permanent decision. But at the age of 36, with a wife and two sons, he was obviously looking for a more permanent solution, and that is exactly what the Atlanta Falcons showed up with. The veteran signed a 4-year contract with the Falcons and moved to Atlanta with his family at the beginning of the 2024 season to settle in with the team and also prove his talents to the organization.
The third QB in the series, Jared Goff, had to go through the transition of settling into a new team and a new setup back in 2021, when he was traded by the Los Angeles Rams, the team that had signed him as the 1st overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. After a series of promising seasons, Jared had led the Rams to Super Bowl LII in 2018, where the team lost to the New England Patriots in what was to be Tom Brady’s final Super Bowl win with the Patriots. Jared once again played a strong role in the Rams reaching the playoffs in 2020, but their loss against the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round happened to be the very last time that he would play for the Los Angeles franchise.
In what he still calls a shocking and unexpected move, Jared Goff was traded to the Detroit Lions ahead of the 2021 season, and he clarifies in the series that the sudden decision taken by the Rams administration did feel like a betrayal of trust to him. The Lions were unarguably one of the worst teams in the NFL at the time, and so everyone, including the Rams (according to Jared), felt that this was the start of the downfall of his career. But to everyone’s surprise, the 2016 1st pick did not only settle in at the city of Detroit but also absolutely dazzled the stage with his performances, leading the rejuvenated Lions team to the NFC Championship Game in 2023, where they eventually lost to the San Francisco 49ers. Therefore, at the beginning of Quarterback season 2, Jared Goff clearly states his goal—to keep up his performances with the team and to lead the Lions to their first-ever Super Bowl in the 2024 season.
Why did Joe Burrow miss out on the MVP award?
Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2024 season began quite underwhelmingly, as the team suffered an irreparable defeat. They lost the match against the New England Patriots at their home Paycor Stadium. Burrow’s performance improved slightly in the second game, but the team was handed a late loss by the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, the team’s first win came in the 4th week, against a struggling Carolina Panthers, but their unstable form continued for many more weeks. Joe Burrow performed consistently throughout this time, though, and his bond with the most important wide receiver in the team, Ja’Marr Chase, grew even stronger on and off the field. As the Netflix series delves into their past, the two are revealed to have already had excellent relations back from the LSU days, as both of them played on the same university team. In fact, it was Joe who had convinced the Bengals to draft Ja’Marr in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Chase and Burrow families are quite close as well, often seen having dinner together in the series. Quarterback season 2 puts equal emphasis on the off-field situations and stories as the on-field ones, with Joe’s tight bond with his parents, Jim and Robin, being a highlight.
Despite the shaky start to the season, Joe Burrow and the Bengals made a solid comeback, winning five games at a stretch towards the end, which theoretically gave them some hope of a playoff appearance. However, this shift in the performance came all too late, as the team now relied on other games for a qualification, as they needed both the Miami Dolphins and the Denver Broncos to lose their respective games. Unfortunately, the Broncos’ final matchday win against the Chiefs took them to the playoffs, eliminating the Cincinnati Bengals in the process. Despite the failure of the team, Joe’s consistently brilliant performances brought him into the discussion of the MVP, with many believing that he deserved the award.
By the end of the 2024 season, Joe Burrow had added a lot of achievements to his name. He had more than 40 passing touchdowns, more than 4,500 passing yards, and fewer than 10 interceptions, becoming only the 3rd NFL quarterback to achieve these numbers. Before him, it was Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers who had been able to achieve those numbers. In the last few games of the season, the stadium would erupt in ‘MVP’ chants whenever Burrow stepped in, and his chances of winning the prestigious award were being considered. However, as Joe said in an interview, he himself did not believe that he deserved the MVP trophy, simply because it is generally awarded to players whose teams have performed phenomenally as well, along with their individual prowess. But the Bengals had an average season, salvaging 9 wins and 8 losses, which meant that Burrow would not be awarded the MVP, and the award instead went to Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills.
Did Kirk Cousins settle in at Atlanta?
Following his move to Atlanta, Kirk Cousins and his family, consisting of his wife, Julie, and their two sons, Cooper and Turner, moved to Georgia from Minnesota, and the kids clearly struggled to settle into this new life, away from their home and friends. Personal struggles aside, Kirk had a real topsy-turvy season, with an unimpressive first game, in which he threw 2 intercepted passes in a loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The player was self-admittedly a bit shaken by the Falcons’ decision to draft Michael Penix Jr., a high-prospect quarterback from the Washington Huskies, as the 8th overall pick. This was clearly a sign of the team not being satisfied with Kirk’s presence and wanting to have a backup QB ready throughout the season. However, Kirk Cousins was given the start, and despite initially struggling to cope with the new playbook, especially as the Falcons implement a lot of audibles and quick calls, he managed to find his feet. Overall, he completed the season with 3508 passing yards and 18 touchdown passes, but the weakest part of his game was clearly the interceptions. The QB admits that he had a couple of seasons earlier in his career when he struggled in making the right calls before throwing a pass, which resulted in numerous interceptions in the games. 2024 was unfortunately this kind of a season for Kirk, as he threw a whopping total of 16 intercepted passes, which arguably cost the Falcons a lot of points in the regular season.
Following an underwhelming performance in a win against the Las Vegas Raiders in week 15, Kirk Cousins was dropped from the team, and head coach Raheem Morris announced in a press conference that he had made the decision to replace Cousins with Michael Penix Jr. in the starting lineup. Despite this setback, Kirk Cousins took the decision very professionally, admitting that he had been dropped because of his unimpressive performances and also because of the injuries that he had sustained in the season. In fact, the first phone call he made after being dropped by Morris was to the young Penix Jr. in order to motivate the rookie into performing for the team. By the end, the Atlanta Falcons finished the season with 9 losses and 8 wins, and the 2024 NFL season was another forgettable campaign for them.
What went wrong for Goff in his last game of the season?
Unlike the two other star QBs in the series and their respective teams, Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions got off to a flying start, with an overtime win against the Los Angeles Rams. Although they lost the second game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what followed was truly magical for the Lions fans, as their beloved team went on an 11-game winning streak, with magnificent performances against the Dallas Cowboys and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Their offensive leader, quarterback Jared Goff, was obviously instrumental in this immense success, and his longtime girlfriend-turned-wife, Christen Harper, thoroughly enjoyed his on-field performances from the sidelines on as many game weeks as she could, balancing her modelling career on the side. However, Quarterback season 2 relives the moment that broke the hearts of Lions fans in the 2024 playoffs, in which the team was definitely considered a strong contender. The Detroit Lions had finished the regular season with 15 wins and just 2 losses, topping the NFC table and skipping past the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The 1st seed team faced the 6th seed Washington Commanders in the Divisional playoff round and unfortunately lost the match in an unexpected fashion. Despite having a brilliant season with the team, Jared struggled to cope with the excellent Commanders defense, repeatedly failing to make any significant impact in the game.
Jared Goff was sacked 3 times in the game, with him even having to go off and receive treatment for a suspected concussion on one instance. He threw 1 touchdown pass and had 3 passes intercepted, summing up a quite mediocre performance in the crucial game. There was hardly anything wrong that the Lions team, or Goff in particular, had done in the match, but their strategies and game plans were just not adequate to the brilliance of the Commanders. While the Lions’ strongest facet had been their attack so far in the season, the Commanders were able to shut down this dangerous offense with exceptional defense, and thus the hearts of the Lions fans were broken once again.
What is up next for the star footballers and their careers?
During Quarterback season 2’s ending, none of the 3-star QBs are able to qualify past the Divisional round of the playoffs, with each of them having to settle with ambitions for the 2025 season. Joe was awarded with title of the Comeback Player of the Year for the 2nd time after 2021, and he hopes to have consistent seasons from now on. If the Cincinnati Bengals are to keep Burrow in their roster for long, then they must hurry to provide him with a better set of players to play with, as discussions have already started about whether the QB is a bit too good for his team at the moment.
Although Kirk Cousins has been demoted to the bench following the 2024 season, he expresses satisfaction and gratitude at the end of the Netflix series for being on the roster, as he knows that a comeback to the starting lineup is still very possible. He wishes to continue playing professional football till his two sons are old enough to understand what their father does for a living, following which he wants to coach them into becoming pro football players. Although the Atlanta Falcons do not seem like a team to create any significant ripple in the league for a few years, we can surely expect to see Cousins play, and even impress, once again.
In Quarterback season 2’s ending Jared Goff is left heartbroken, following the Detroit Lions’ unexpected exit from the playoffs in the very first game that they played. However, he remains determined to continue performing at the highest level and prove himself to be an NFL QB worth remembering in the future. He is already a much-beloved figure in Detroit, and he is sure to continue with the team for long, with the Lions possibly continuing to impress in the seasons to come. Meanwhile, Jared and Christen are also expecting the birth of their first child, as the Netflix docuseries ends with the heartwarming announcement of their pregnancy.
